Photography can be both an art form and a form of scientific inquiry. Photos of People and Cultures can promote human understanding better than any written words. This site from National Geographic can serve both ends if used properly. Art teachers "focus" on tips and techniques and photography advice areas, while science/social studies teachers will easily locate a wide range of plant, animal, culture, and geography images. As always, the photos themselves are exquisite.

In the Classroom

Share a photo of the day as an activator at the start of a lesson on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Allow a student of the day to select his/her photo of the day as a class inspiration. Share a photo as a visual writing prompt. Use tools on your IWB to discover and reveal design elements in the photos in art class. Use selected collections on laptops with student partners (galleries) to provide a visual experience of a location or culture you are studying, asking students to observe for visual evidence of some of the major concepts you have discussed in class.

The American Chemical Society offers a complete series of activities for grades K-8, all based on hands-on experience. Click Education in the middle of this opening page find programs and units for Elementary through Graduate School. Also offered is a section for careers in science. This is a great resource for science teachers who need additional chemistry content or activities.This site includes advertising.

The National Park Service manages both an incredible inventory of natural wonders and many of America's most historic places. This site makes professional quality images of these - searchable by park - available for classroom use. In a world where copyright is always an issue, this site is a welcome addition.

In the Classroom

Use this site to search for images of a particular region being studied in a Physical geography class. These images can be incorporated into lectures, projects, displays etc. Just research before-hand what parks are in the specific area, and search away!

Though its search interface takes a little practice, this internet resource allows teachers and students to view the tracks of over 150 hurricanes and tropical storms. Search the database by storm name, zip code, landing point, or latitude and longitude to learn about areas impacted by hurricanes. An interesting resource for climatology lessons, this site is also a good starting point for additional research into tropical storms.

This National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration page delivers the who, what, why, when, and how of Global Warming. Based on a brief summary of the 2001 Intergovernmental Report on Climate change, this site provides very useful background information on Global Warming. A good place to start for more in-depth research on the topic.

Originally intended for use in introductory college geology courses, this site has a catalogue of geology images that may also be helpful for high school geology teachers seeking to illustrate scientific phenomena.

This educational software is designed to allow teachers to plan biology and ecology lessons using a helpful, user-friendly simulations. Along with the software, the site has a teachers' guide with suggestions for integrating the simulation into the classroom through three main units. The site also provides a template for planning lessons based on the online curriculum. You will want to read the "readme" files before attempting to download the software.

This site contains five geological simulations and online labs for use by high school teachers. From understanding earthquake epicenters to observing the movements of a virtual river, these online lessons provide a unique means for witnessing these scientific occurrences.

This site focuses on local water supplies throughout the world. The site relies on student and teacher participation to add their local water supply to the site's database. The site provides helpful resources for teachers and students seeking to research their local water supply to help contribute to the site. This site is a great way to raise awareness of local environmental issues.

The Education pages on this site provide helpful links for both teachers and students learning about the ecosystem and life-science topics in the Chesapeake Bay. The Educators' resources provide links to different programs conducted by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, including links to findings at a number of monitoring stations around the Bay. The kids' section has a number of student-friendly sites on wildlife and conservation topics

This site presents teachers with a searchable index of natural sciences resources contained within the museum's site. You can browse the web-sites, activities, and experiments by sub-topic, grade level, or resource type. Current subtopics include anthropology, astronomy, biology, earth science, and paleontology. Special collection exhibits present theme-based activities that cover additional topics such as Biodiversity, Antarctica, and deep sea explorations. This is a great site for sorting out all the wonderful resources the museum has to offer. There are over 1,000 resources currently available on countless subjects. Some of the resources require Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

A great site for Life Science and Earth-Space Science, this site addresses a popular region in Arctic studies, the Bering Sea. This site has articles and information on Ecosystems, maps of the region, as well as a customized data analysis function that allows users to access a number of NOAA databases. The databases may be good for advanced research, while the ecosystem information is suitable for classroom use.

This site is still under construction, but it provides stellar resources for geology and earth science topics. Designed by the Museum of Natural History, this site provides a dynamic flash exploration sections on Rocks and Mining, Gems and Minerals, Volcanoes and Plate Tectonics, and the Solar System.You MUST have the latest version of Flash to run this page, or it will appaear to be blank.

In the Classroom

open the site on the interactive whiteboard or projector, and use the "exhibits" as a guide to a lecture on one of the many aspects of Physical Geography. Use the maps, diagrams and images of earth matter to supplement your lecture. This site would be great in a Earth Science or Physical Geography class.

This site has a gigantic collection of public domain images from America's National Parks. Search the site by park or by topic. This could be a very helpful resource for multimedia research projects. Unfortunately, this collection has photos only and does not provide extensive additional information on the pictures.

The kids' page is directed towards elementary science, with coloring pages and fun frog facts for kids. The Teachers' page has helpful hints and recommendations for rainforest lessons in grades K-12. Both sections have links for further research, and there are reading lists for both children and adults.

UCSD has created an interactive flash site that explores Giant Kelp in its ocean habitat, diagrams of the plant itself, and all the many unexpected places you can find kelp all around you in every day life. This site is a creative and kid-friendly with good information for studying undersea life.

This International Snow Leopard Trust site boasts a Flash-intro, a number of cat-facts, and an interactive classroom designed to examine animal conservation and the snow leopard population. The site has interesting life-science lessons focusing on survival and adaptation.

Whether your are planning a trip or researching wildlife, this site has useful information on the species native to the Assateage Island Wildlife Refuge on the shores of Virginia and Maryland. The site has profiles of fish, birds, and mammals who call Assateague home.

The National Parks Conservation Society offers this site about endangered segments of coastal habitats. In addition to general descriptions of the dangers and hazards these environments face, there are more detailed examples of successful recovery and rebuilding projects. ent.

This one is hard to describe, but it offers a beautifully designed collection of close-ups of insects and their environments. Surprisingly well-written descriptions accompany these images, and there's a "magnify" feature that lets users see even more of the details. Younger students will enjoy the images, and secondary students will appreciate the descriptions and explanations.